At least 70 people killed as Bangladesh building collapses

DHAKA, Bangladesh — An eight-story building housing garment factories collapsed in Bangladesh, killing at least 70 people in the nation’s worst industrial accident in five months.

The mishap injured about 800 people working in the plants, the Bdnews24.com website, which said 80 people had been killed, reported without citing anyone. As many as 6,000 people were employed in the facilities housed in the building 24 kilometers northwest of the capital Dhaka, the news website reported. A few shops and a bank also had an office in the area, Health Minister A.F.M. Ruhal Haque said in a briefing Wednesday.

The disaster renews focus on Bangladesh’s industrial safety record after a fire at a plant producing garments for companies including Wal-Mart Stores killed at least 100 people in November. The building had developed cracks Tuesday, prompting BRAC Bank to order its employees to vacate the premises, said spokesman Zeeshan Kingshuk Huq.

“It will take a lot of time to get a full picture of the devastation,” Nilufa Yasmin, a duty officer at the Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defence, said in a phone interview. “The top five floors of the building collapsed on top of each other, trapping many inside.”

More than 700 garment workers have died since 2005 in Bangladesh, according to the International Labor Rights Forum, a Washington-based advocacy group.

Surging wages and inflation in China, the largest apparel supplier, have prompted retailers such as Wal-Mart and Sears Holdings Corp. to shift production to Bangladesh. In response, an $18 billion manufacturing industry has sprung up, marred by factories operated in buildings with poor electrical wiring, an insufficient number of exits and little fire-fighting equipment.

Fifty percent of the Bangladesh’s garment factories don’t meet legally required work safety standards and those that have improved working conditions have done so under pressure from Western apparel makers, said Kalpona Akter, executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, a non- governmental organization founded by two former garment child workers to promote safer factories. Bangladesh’s labor law requires safety measures such as fire extinguishers and easily accessible exits at factories.

Labor rights activists are urging the industry to help pay for safety upgrades at about 4,500 Bangladesh factories. Doing so would amount to 10 cents per garment — or $3 billion over five years — according to an analysis provided by the Worker Rights Consortium, a Washington-based monitoring group.

Textiles contribute more than 10 percent of Bangladesh’s gross domestic product and about 80 percent of the nation’s exports, mainly to the U.S. and the EU, according to the manufacturers’ association.

It’s not immediately clear for which companies the garment factories made clothes. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said in a statement that she was shocked at the tragedy.